TRDL News and Reviews

TRDL 2012 Series No. 11 – Emma Frost (TRDL Redesign)

TRDL thom — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:12:14 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 11 – Emma Frost, X-Men First Class Version [TRDL Redesign]

The TRDL R3 Challenge this week was to redesign a character from a comic adaption show or film that you specifically didn’t like. I chose to do Emma Frost from the X-Men: First Class film. Setting aside my frustration with how January Jones either played the role, or acts in general, depending on your opinion of her I guess. I’m focusing here on the costuming. They were after a 60′s influenced version of Emma Frost’s well-known duds, generally being white tall boots, long gloves, and white undies and corset, like an S&M maven inverted. What they delivered, however, was confusing to me. Now, I now full well from my experience as a designer that editorial changes can push a great design into dubious territory fast, but I was lost on this. Big furry shoulder puffs at the perimeter of a white cape, OK. Kind of a snow queen russian thing happening there. Then, a plain brazier (which looks like a bra), bare midriff, a plain white miniskirt, and thigh high boots with makeshift garter attachments. I don’t know if the costume execution failed or the concept as a whole. This is my take on what I’d have done.

I liked the massing of the shoulders but I made them glittering crystal, to allude to her ‘secondary mutation’ as we saw in the film, transforming to diamond. The cape is actually a draping over the arms that falls long but split open at the bottom. I used a white corset with lacing, and a blouse matched to the cape. I have briefs instead of a mini-skirt, and I used a silver ring detail for the garter attachment points as well as to affix a silver necklace from either side of her chest. The cape and blouse fitment is secured by hoops under the arms, like a backpack.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

Artists, come join us on R3 and submit to the jams! The R3 Illustration Jam offers new characters weekly, but all jams remain open so you can contribute to any that you like, here:
http://www.thirdraildesignlab.com/forum … m.php?f=27
or in the TRDL-R3-WeeklyJam group on DA, here:
http://trdl-r3-weeklyjam.deviantart.com/

:::

Background:

Here’s the film version of Emma Frost’s costume that I responded to.

For a loose pose reference, I used this gorgeous image of Maggie Q. For posture, not frame, as she is scary thin.

Even a hand model. A very handsome hand model.

The original pencils for the piece, shown. I actually drew in a cold wisp of icy breath but since the top of the submarine-yacht scene wasn’t arctic, it was too on the nose.

Original inks

Rendered for color

Here I digitally redrew the rings and other small details in the inks.

Flesh, very pale but not unhealthy.

The crystals on the shoulders were a ton of fun. I can imagine this looking pretty rad on film.

I noticed that the thigh was too short, over-exaggerating a foreshortening inaccurately. A new layer and a guideline for fixing ensued.

The leg was redone digitally under the guideline, like so.
From here, on to creating the yacht guardrail and so on.

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL Interviewed on Khuantru

TRDL thom — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:59:02 +0000

Khuantru.com just published an interview with me that was conducted late last year. Go check it out! There are several other interviews up over the last few years that you may find delightful as well…

http://www.khuantru.com/2012/02/intervi … iaramonte/

TRDL 2011 Holiday Con Sketch – Aurora

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TRDL 2011 Holiday Con Sketch – Aurora

TRDL Collaboration: The Ferrous Gentleman

TRDL thom — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:41:57 +0000

TRDL / Deadless Collaboration for Tag-Team Battle Royale Semi-FInal Round: The Ferrous Gentleman

As you may recall, I have participated over the past year in a series of Battle Royale contests on Outcast, the latest of which being a Tag-Team competition. We thought we were knocked out in the quarter-finals, as we were unable to complete ours on time due to personal obligations. However, the competition was based on tiered points, so they had a first and a pair for second place. So, we were back in, pitched against Batmanners and Seb-Printer to duke it out for that second seat and a place in the finals. We were assigned the topic: BOTTLE.

Our approach was to do a homage to the classic Iron Man #128 cover by Bob Layton. In ours, the story takes place at the turn of the century, and poor Science Hero Antony Stark is hooked on absinthe and in a world of trouble.

Good news: we’re headed to the finals, as just announced:
http://outcaststudios.com/forums/index. … ntry124914

You can find a larger version here.

Also, this variant was my personal preference. However I did not submit it, as I thought the normal color version would be more successful in the competition:

And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

So here’s our famous cover… man I love that. Animated or not, ha.

Here’s my rough as sent to Miguel to work with.
Because it’s hard to parse and my idea was kind of screwy, I annotated:

Here’s those annotations. I was so in love with this concept. I actually had doubts it would go over well in the contest, but I was into it.

This is the kind of pic I’d be doing on my own and just rolling into the details, but hard to explain the concept to an international cohort as busy as I am. But we were on the same page.

These were Miguel’s inks, as he completed them. Pretty great effort!

First step for me was to pull everything into one piece, so I could start moving things around. Of course, fitting it all in width wise was going to be challenging. Tha’s where working in composite can sometimes bite you in the ass. It’s bitten me on Finite a few times, where the piece, if drawn in one composition to start with, would at least be WYSIWYG… so to speak.

I started with Stark’s skin. I wanted him to look ill… that pale, sickly palor of someone who has been burning the candle at both ends and probably not eating or sleeping. The rest would be done at the end.

Next, the rest of the colors were completed. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle the references to the classic Iron Man armor colors. I originally thought his suit would be leather and iron and that’s it, and the curtains and wallpaper in the mirror be colorful. But I wanted a more obvious nod, so I did both in these colors, with the mirror image desaturated. My concept was that he performs a carnivale show as The Ferrous Gentleman and these are his presentation colors in the background.

Here was the work on the bottle. Loved this component. You can see overall that I did a lot of chopping and tweaking to fit everything in, especially around the bottle, glass and absinthe spoon. I ultimately moved the spoon to his gloved hand.

Here I added all the blue and gray to his eyelids, stubble and so on. I also discovered that his gloved arm was behind the helment in the inks so I digitally brought that forward. You may also note that I redrew the eyes to come more centered and be in despair but not the total bug-out of the original piece.

One comment in the content voting was that the mirror could have used more sheen, glare etc. I thought about that but felt it hurt the focus of the composition. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. You just have to choose your approach and stick with it!

Another fun collaboration with Miguel. On to finals!

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 10 – Nightcrawler [TRDL Redesign]

TRDL thom — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:06:50 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 10 – Nightcrawler [TRDL Redesign]

This week’s TRDL R3 Challenge is Nightcrawler, from the X-Men (found here and here, always open for entries). He’s currently deceased, but you know how long that sort of thing sticks in comics. Anyway, I chose to do a TRDL Redesign (not a Blank Slate Redesign, but just a facelift) which focused on the aspects of the character I liked best as a younger guy: hiding in the shadows, ambush attacks, and weapon proficiency. Essentially, I looked at him as a tactical weapon, such as might conceptually be used in X-Force (the hit squad version) or some other black ops type mutant team. I know sometimes my redesigns, especially on fighting characters, skew perhaps over-realistically to black. It’s hard for me to put on that redesign hat and rationalize much color in the outfit if they are meant to evade detection. Anyway, that’s certainly the case here: I gave him a simple, body-hugging tactical suit, like a thermal neoprene kit, with arms and half the legs exposed. Bare hands and feet, because I never really grasped how someone with the mutations allowing for agile acrobatic maneuvers and hanging/swinging/climbing capability would dull their tactile ability with gloves, or use gloves and boots with grip in lieu of their own mutation. So. Also, forearm bracers contain throwing chits with nerve toxin lacing, and the two swords (in this case I used a more vaguely eastern style weapon, like a pair of even-length katanas, rather than a rapier, so that he would have an edged attack as well as the stabby business of a sport rapier) do criss-cross deliberately to give us a familiar ‘X’ motif without having to emblazon it on his uniform.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

Nightcrawler’s very well known as a character design, so I won’t belabor it beyond pointing you to the TRDL R3 Challenge page for this character, which has many references. But I did have to look up how different artists have interpreted his teleportation smoke.

Here’s the original pencils. I wanted it to be one of those deals where he teleported right on top of his foe and is descending down on them. I figured he’d most likely be upside down, since characters with agility I like to show not having that tenuous upward axis rigidity.

Here’s the original inks. I like how they scan. When I convert them for render, you definitely lose something in the conversion. I may have to continue experimenting with overlaying the original inks using a pass-through layer.

Here’s the renderable inks. As you can see, more streamlined. You lose some of that sense of physical media, obviously, as the scan picks up deformations in the paper and ink flow which my process smooths over.

I started with his skin. For this one, I would be doing something uncommon for my pics: back-lighting, as coming from the teleportation cloud flash behind him. It also gives me a chance to play with that fun aspect of his mutation, that he blends into shadows… I always imagined it as a pigmentation shift. I know that’s not canon, though.
I use a dark blue for his skin, pushing to black.

I new his tactical suit would be largely monochramatic and dark, but wasn’t yet shure if it would be black-black or have a different tint to it. I often start in a warm gray palette, and then experiment with colors. I use warm gray vs proper gray because it has a bit of color in it to be tweaked, where true cold grays do not.

In order to render highlights on very dark images I drop opacity so I can see my comings and goings.

Here’s the figure, completed, sans digital tail and teleportation cloud.

I originally just had the tail curling in a wide arc, as you can see in the pencils. As I was preparing the final image, I realized it was another opportunity to play with the character’s abilities: he is very dexterous with that tail… so here, we have it curled around a grenade, handle depressed, with the tip in the ring. I love this detail.

Here’s the first render of the cloud. It was too soft. Like porridge.

To get the effect I went with, I used ‘Accent Edges’ in Photoshop and played around. I really like the result!

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 09 – Baroness

TRDL thom — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:58:17 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 09 – Baroness [GI Joe]

This was done for the 2nd Cobra Art Jam Projecton the #Cobrafanclub group on dA. In this case, the jam is an aggregate of all the art submitted in a line-up. We got to pick who we wanted to draw, and frankly, while I have no time for extra projects right now, I can’t get Baroness out of the midbrain, so i joined the project. This also, sort of as a stretch, but was included in the Assassins Challenge on the TRDL R3 Forum.

My task specifically was to draw the black uniform version of Baroness. I was thisclose to drawing her classic cartoon version, but as I worked, I just felt like embellishing it in a more custom manner. The colors skew to the blues to allow detail to be seen, but I think it’s obvious it’s not the blue uniform she sometimes wore which is you know, technicolor blue. For action figure sales. Big gun too!

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

Who among us is unfamiliar with the Baroness? Even if you weren’t of the age to see her in the old cartoons or have the figures or read the comics, as I was, the GI Joe mythos has been revisited many times in the decades since, and thanks to Sienna Miller’s swagger in the film, and Adam Hughes’ everything else, the younger generation know all about her too. For my money, i do appreciate the jet black, shiny leather version as Hughes’ drew. However, I didn’t go that route for this project because the nature of the assembled jam pic is that it will be a very long image with small characters shown, so detail will be hard enough to see as it is. I didn’t want to completely wash her out in black and shine.

Here’s the original pencils. Again, as it has been for years now, apparently, I was drawing half asleep with a newborn on me. The challenge was that I wanted to give her a weapon that evoked the cartoons to me, ie an energy weapon that never hits a living target. So while she does have a pair of pistols in holsters in the small of her back, and carries a big knife, I gave her an oversized shoulder-mounted Big Energy Gun. For science.

It was immediately clear that her brow was too high. I do that every time, when a bangless hairline is used. Crazy. Thanks to Photoshop, all is not lost.

Here’s the processing for render. Two things may be clear: I didn’t hardline the hair as it would go to jet black in the colors; also, I’ve been playing with a smaller line based on some feedback over at Outcast. Not sure yet if I’m going to keep toying with this or not, as it’s not as pleasing to my eye as a somewhat thicker line (though we’re only talking about a 0.05mm difference, nominally).

Here’s the face, and some adjustment in the brow. Further would be required The head is too long.

Here’s the basic colors. You’ll note the head has been considerably refined, and the colors, which had shifted around as I worked, trying to find the right balance between them, have settled down. From here, the Cobra logo was added, which involved about 10 minutes of Warp adjustment to build the curve of the décolletage. Slight darkening and we’re done. A Transparent GIF was sent off to the group.
Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 08 – Wonder Woman [New 52]

TRDL thom — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 16:09:04 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 08 – Wonder Woman [New 52 Jim Lee Design]

This was done for the TRDL R3 Challenge this week, the subject being the New 52 version of Wonder Woman.

When I first saw this design (Jim Lee’s concept art specifically) I felt that the detailing was overwrought and the redundancy in the little gilded W’s everywhere was distracting. However, what I DID like about it was that he used silver instead of gold detailing, which was something I’d done myself when redesigning the previous Jim Lee redesign (the jacket one) so there’s that. Since this design was released, it was hacked up in public view, by other artists drawing off-model as well as by editorial decision, and we ended up first with a simplified version of the costume and later with no pants, apparently responding to the demands of fandom. I think I’ve found something to like in each design version, the longer I looked at them. Anyway, I chose Jim Lee’s first version of the New 52 redesign to see if I could make sense of the detail in the bodice and leggings and such. Wasn’t as painful as I feared, but there’s a lot going on!

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

This is the version of Jim Lee’s design that I approached. Ribbed bodice, multi-seamed ‘wonderpants’, star cutouts in everything, multiple W motifs in the silver, ribbed lower legs, and in general, a younger woman with bigger hair. More aggressive, more contemporary as according to DC editorial.

Compare that to this version we next saw leaked to comic news sites, with a streamlined version of that design, roughly. The outrage over pants continued.

And the design they seemed to have settled with, with no pants, long hair, more retro-styled boots, and so on.

My original pencils. I found them troubling. First, I was going for that sort of vague action stance you might find on a cover or splash page, not so dynamic as to obscure the figure, but not as static as the standing figure drawings I like doing. So she’s sort of galloping at you. Pencil issues with the face and a few other places due to dull lead tip and an infant on me.
I posted this Work in Progress to R3 and the Outcast Forum for comments, and got some good feedback, including increasing the hand scale, decreasing the head, and working on the right arm musculature.

Here’s inks…

…and processed for render. Well, something went terribly wrong with the inks in the face, that’s for sure. Photoshop to the rescue.

First edit, based on eagle-eyed Outcaster comments: I increased the definition in the right arm biceps and pushed the rotator cuff into more obvious extension to make it clearer that this arm was pulling back a bit.

Next up, head. Though the head size is another indicator of approximate age intent, I did want to reduce it so I dropped it by about 10% and worked on the hair. That also allowed me to fix some issues with neck placement and detail. I also reduced the volume above the forehead and adjusted the headpiece.

Here’s the skin I used. I often draw WW with a darker skintone, falling somewhere between stylized greek and stylized islander. But the New 52 is very much a white white white WW, so I gave her a much lighter skin tone this time.

Here’s the red bodice. I used a slightly more saturated red than the reference pic, but not too warm.

I started with a much lighter blue and blue-gray for the costume in order to have some clarity in the coloring, but I’d be definitely darkening it.

Instead of a white silver, I went more titanium with the metal, to be honest. I think it looks better, personally.

Here we are, ready for some color tweaks.

I went very dark with the pants and blue overall, but not as dark as the reference, which seems to be almost blue-black leather with a lot of shine to it.

For the lasso, I actually freehanded the arcs. I wish I was proficient enough in Illustrator to build a path like that, but I played with this for awhile and liked the result. My favorite detail is the shine on her legs.

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 07 – Xartherian Warmonger

TRDL thom — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 22:19:47 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 07 – Xartherian Warmonger

This piece was actually completed in 2009/2010, but for the life of me, I don’t think I ever made it public after client approvals. If I did, whoops, but if not, we proceed. This is the alien race in my client’s world that operate the Xartherian Org Battle Carapace, which I had designed in 2005 for him. We talked a lot about some of the imagery he imagined for them, in rough appearance, affectation, nature, and the like, and this is what I came up with. Despite my general dislike of multi-armed anthropods, this was probably my most successful attempt, since due to the xenobiology I could rationalize a long torso with multiple sets of rotator cuffs and pecs. Process notes are below, if you are so inclined.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

I don’t have any step-by-steps really this time, but I have a few items to share:

Here’s my original pencils. I was inspired by the long, fighter class martians from John Carter of Mars, but I had little formal experience with them. This was mostly from painted book art and the like. The rest of my cues were rationalizing the three operable sets of arms, a long torso, and big feet for stability. I gave them a body suit and a way to sling the weapons. Note the third set of arms is armored and cybernetic, with claw hands. That was important to the client.

Inks. At this point, the head was rounded and very simple.
The idea with the hoses was that they breathe through their skin membrane.

This was the original completed design. The client wanted less tusking and a bit of a different shape to the face so the revision is the head we ended up with in the final version of the pic. More hair, more of an aggressive face rather than reptilian, and the dreads are back there!

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Series No. 02 – Admiral Hamilton (Time Traveler)

TRDL thom — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 01:49:12 +0000

TRDL 2012 Series, No. 02 – Admiral Hamilton [Time-Traveler Version]

Admiral Hamilton is one of the creator-owned characters I’ve helped one of my longterm clients design and flesh out for his universe of stories and comics. Think space opera, but with a decidedly personal tether back to cultural experiences of the author. So, Admiral Hamilton, one of maybe 12-14 characters I’ve done for Al Hobbie, was already worked out last year or so in his middle-aged adult persona, which can be seen in the process notes below. The challenge this time, and I have to say one of the hardest ones to suss out as a designer to date, was to send him back in time, into the 70′s Projects somewhere in the hard inner city, but wearing victorian dress. Also, he was to have aged considerably, and wield a technologically-enhanced walking cane. And have a cyborg lower half. With ROM style feet. But not be pantless. And he was to look either angry or crazed, depending. He’s trying to get back home, etc. As you can imagine, it was a journey reaching a design that realized the client’s vision and made some visual sense. More on that in the notes! But it’s always fun working with Al, and I’m in this for precisely this reason: finding a design solution to the images in a client’s head, even when they are hard to nail down.

You can find a larger version here.
And as always you can read about some of the design notes in my process pics below.

:::

Background:

This is Admiral Hamilton in his middle-aged adult form, designed previously.

This was my first pass at pencils. I didn’t yet understand he would have a cybernetic body that was visible and out of place. At this point, I still thought he was IN the Victorian Period, and trying to blend in, a la Star Trek Away Missions involving idiosyncratic time travel. Hence the android parts shaped and faceted to look like clothes.

Here’s the revised pencils. Now wer’e coming at the viewer, more obviously emotionally charged. The cane is more techy. The concept of a bot bottom end is now happening. I new I wouldn’t want this guy waltzing around with a long coat on top and bare robot physiology below, because he’d read pantless. Which is only going to happen in a SugarDVD search. So I’d draw in pants later, digitally. I envisioned them as being tattered.

Original inks…

Ready for render. Again, digital pants.

The skin work was based on the original character design I did, with a few tweaks. I like playing with skin tones, and he is one of the darkest african american characters I’ve done. For the new aged version, I weathered him even more, darker skin by a hair, and more pepper to the hair. Which is receding. Nothing wrong with that.

I did the colors for his top half first. I was tempted to work in blacks but I fell in love with some brown/grays along the way.

Hey, digital pants! I faded the work on a layer group beneath so I could see what’s what.

Colors for said pants.

And the figure is complete!

Thanks for reading.

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TRDL 2012 Charity Sketch: Barbara Gordon

TRDL thom — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 20:48:50 +0000

This con sketch is for Sarah Cody, who won it as part of Sherry’s Japanese Post-Quake Post-Nuke Rebuild Raffle. The subject is Barbara Gordon, not as Batgirl but in her previous (and more interesting) incarnation, as the wheelchair-bound super genius Oracle. I used a design for a conceptual industrial design project involving a wheelchair that relies on dynamically shaped wheels for maximum efficiency and ease of use, which you can find here. I made some changes though, including adding a footrest. I have to assume even in my version the chair auto calibrates so she remains level despite the cantilever.

Anyway, thanks for participating in Sherry’s raffle, Sarah!

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TRDL 2012 Charity Sketch: Keitaro Urashima

TRDL thom — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 19:37:53 +0000

This con sketch is for Ryan Black, who won it as part of Sherry’s Japanese Post-Quake Post-Nuke Rebuild Raffle. The subject is Keitaro Urashima from Love Hina. I threw in a wrong helicopter RC experience. Pro Tip: Be wary of the R/F for your RC helicopter control unit…mine happened to not play nice with the carbon monoxide detector/alarm in my daughter’s room, causing it to shriek that there was a CO2 leak and to evacuate exclamation point evacuate, and she STILL remains afraid of her own room three days later.

Here’s Keitaro and the gang:

Anyway, thanks for participating in Sherry’s raffle, Ryan!

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